What is your Smogon username? | Approximately how many games of GSC NU have you played? | Where have you played GSC NU? | When have you played GSC NU? | How much do you like the current GSC NU metagame? | Why do you like or dislike the current GSC NU metagame? | [Ban Raichu only] | [Ban Raichu, Poliwrath, and Golduck] | [Allow Vileplume] | [Do not change anything] | Please explain your reasoning for choosing the above order. |
Century Express | 26-50 | Friendly games, RoA Tour Nights, Ladder, Tournaments hosted on Smogon, Other tournaments | During the Feraligatr metagame, During the current metagame | 4 | | Third preference | Fourth preference | First preference | Second preference | "I totally support the Vileplume drop. It should be a good metagame addition, reducing some of GSC NU's previous issues (reactive / Sleep Talk oriented / stalemates scenarios between Raichu dittos / Bulky-Waters dittos), while providing more room to build momentum with SDers and Cursers
I'm not too much interested in GSC NU meta without Vileplume, though" |
Earthworm | 101+ | Friendly games, NUPL, RoA Tour Nights, Ladder, Tournaments hosted on Smogon, Other tournaments | During the Mr. Mime and Pikachu metagame, During the Feraligatr metagame, During the current metagame | 2 | The outcome of Raichu 1v1s has too much impact on game outcomes and stall is too powerful, which creates undesirable win determinants. | Second preference | First preference | Third preference | Fourth preference | With Raichu gone, the Water-types would be too powerful, so I would prefer to save time and ban them now. I believe that unbanning Vileplume would be going in the wrong direction and would lead to a metagame where teams are very similar and win determinants in games between high skill players are more likely to be luck than out-team building or outplaying, and it would also take a lot of time to come to these conclusions. Therefore, I would prefer to ban just Raichu over unbanning Vileplume. I also don't particularly like the idea of unbanning a Pokemon that was determined to be B rank in the UU VR. However, I'd still prefer to do something rather than nothing. |
Bughouse | 26-50 | Friendly games, RoA Tour Nights, Tournaments hosted on Smogon | During the Feraligatr metagame, During the current metagame | 3 | | Fourth preference | Second preference | First preference | Third preference | "I'm ranking my preferences in the order of what I think will create the most stable metagames. These may also have lower teambuilding variety, but it will avoid having mons that are countered best by themselves.
Allowing vileplume provides a counter to waters and electrics, while Vileplume is best countered by other mons like Flying types or Weezing. I do not like just banning Raichu, because water types may become pretty untenable and be best countered by other water types. In addition, I think in a meta with no Raichu but also the best water type being Poliwrath, Xatu will be a menace. I'd prefer doing nothing to this potentially very bad outcome.
By contrast, banning the best waters, Poliwrath and Golduck, along with Raichu will prevent water types from being such an unstoppable force. Other usable water types with a wide variety of niches will still exist, including Mantine, Dewgong, Azumarill, Kingler, Octillery, and Poliwhirl. This I think would be better than the status quo, but less so than simply adding Vileplume who will centralize and stabilize the meta in imo a health way." |
Eo Ut Mortus | 1-25 | Friendly games, RoA Tour Nights, I have never played GSC NU, Unfriendly games | During the Mr. Mime and Pikachu metagame, During the Feraligatr metagame, Never | 1 | The ubiquity of Raichu makes it difficult to run paternal strategies | Second preference | Third preference | Fourth preference | First preference | I think we should ban Raichu and Golduck, but not Poliwrath. I have voted based on the likelihood this outcome is eventually reached. |
Sage | 26-50 | Friendly games, NUPL, Tournaments hosted on Smogon | During the Feraligatr metagame, During the current metagame | 2 | | Third preference | First preference | Second preference | Fourth preference | I think the top threats are a bit oversaturated. Vileplume feels like it has the potential to just become another high usage staple and I don't think that's the correct way to make the meta more balanced. Just getting rid of Raichu would make the best Waters even more dominant, so it makes more sense to have stuff like Octillery with more weaknesses be the best Water-types. While you might see stuff like Xatu become much better without Raichu I think the mons that benefit most from this will be more abusable, and they also aren't in the situation where they reliably check each other such as the Raichu ditto. |
Diophantine | 26-50 | Friendly games, NUPL, RoA Tour Nights, Tournaments hosted on Smogon | During the Feraligatr metagame, During the current metagame | 2 | Too centralising and a massive gap in viability between a small group of pokemon and the rest. | Second preference | First preference | Third preference | Fourth preference | Something needs to be changed. If Vileplume is allowed, it's still not a disincentive to use Raichu or the other centralising Pokemon of the metagame. If Raichu goes, I can see the bulky waters being overpowered, but I think that we should test things before we make actions. |
elodin | 26-50 | Friendly games, NUPL | During the Feraligatr metagame, During the current metagame | 1 | The best pokemon in the tier are much better than the rest and they're the only ones capable of checking themselves, which means all teams look the same unless you wanna lose to raichu / poliwrath / dugtrio. | Third preference | First preference | Second preference | Fourth preference | Not doing anything would keep this goddamn metagame the way it is and that would be just terrible if this ever made it back to nupl somehow. Banning raichu only would make water-types impossible to deal with. Allowing vileplume is a decent option, but i don't see how it helps preventing every team / game from looking the exact same. Banning raichu, poliwrath, and golduck is for sure the best option for a healthier tier with more diversity in its gameplay. |
Bouff | 1-25 | Test games for NUPL | During the current metagame | 2 | feels very centralized - that's not necessarily a bad thing in itself, pretty much every old gen lower tier is heavily gravitated towards a mon or two, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of reason to try to deviate aside from a few tried and true teams, building in the tier isn't really enjoyable after trying to scan around and mess with some different things and playing it isn't a whole lot better | First preference | Third preference | Second preference | Fourth preference | went into this in the thread but i'll reiterate a bit here. there's not really a whole lot of reason not to run thunder hp ground resttalk because thunder covers mostly everything that isn't a resist, hp ground is self explanatory and on dealing with other raichu alone it's more useful than the other options imo. grasses aren't particularly amazing and there are other options for dealing with it but none of them are super reliable, and raichu doesn't particularly need a lot of team support to cover them (and to a lesser extent the archetypes you'd find them on, but maybe that's being a bit presumptuous). after reading the posts in the thread and some thinking i've kinda come around to vileplume, though i still do stand by what i said in my post so i'm somewhat wary. in the same way i am also wary of the effects of banning all 3, and eventually something'll crop up that'll have the same effect as raichu is now, or as the waters would be if raichu were to be banned. regardless though i 100% believe something needs to be done |
Watchog | 26-50 | Friendly games, NUPL, RoA Tour Nights, Other tournaments | During the Feraligatr metagame, During the current metagame | 2 | The repetitive nature of the metagame due to the centralizing presence of Raichu and bulky Water-types. Games devolve into mirror matches rather quickly and it is hard to build outside of the current framework of Raichu - bulky Water - Xatu - Dugtrio - Grass-type - Filler. | Third preference | Second preference | First preference | Fourth preference | "I think Vileplume would introduce the strong Grass-type that the metagame needs. It checks Raichu, bulky Waters, and Dugtrio while still being checked by Xatu, Fearow and the like. It will probably be centralizing by itself, but I do believe it is the ideal fix.
Would be interesting, but I don't think banning would be the best choice. Tier would devolve into Xatu vs. Xatu wars, which is undesirable. Also I don't think Golduck would be an issue, even if the other two are banned.
Banning Raichu only will send the tier into Water-type vs. Water-type wars, which is undesirable.
Changing nothing is probably worst case scenario." |
TonyFlygon | 1-25 | NUPL | During the current metagame | 2 | Raichu is a big problem due to the lack of good defensive options in the tier | Second preference | Third preference | First preference | Fourth preference | Vileplume should help with both Raichu and Golduck, while it still has counterplay itself. |
Chippy2001 | 26-50 | Friendly games | During the Feraligatr metagame, During the current metagame | 3 | I believe the format is quite unbalanced, Raichu is a big problem (namely for the reasons proposed in the forum post) but banning him opens up a can of worms as well. Xatu, Poliwrath, Golduck, Dewgong, etc. There isn't any real one-stop to them once Raichu goes. It's a very difficult to really balance it, not sure how the format could be made good going forward. | Second preference | First preference | Third preference | Fourth preference | "I believe banning Raichu, Poliwrath and Golduck would be the best choice right now, as it minimizes the potential damage. While the available Pokemon drop quite a bit, it does become substantially more balanced without going through a string of overbearing mons.
Banning Raichu would be my second preference as I do believe it is the core issue, and to ban Raichu and test the others would be the """"professional"""" way to do it.
Vileplume I feel would definitely help the tier, but it's a difficult one given not a whole lot of the tier is prepared for it. Magmar and Xatu would rise, and Raichu would be forced to adapt. Dewgong would also have a small niche over Poliwrath and Golduck as well to deal with it. On the flip side, Pokemon like Sudowoodo, Azumarrill and such would suffer. I can't really give too significant an opinion due to my limited experience however, so take it with a pinch of salt.
Doing nothing I feel would simply let the issues fester. I don't see any reason to not do anything." |
HSA | 26-50 | NUPL, RoA Tour Nights, Tournaments hosted on Smogon | During the Mr. Mime and Pikachu metagame, During the Feraligatr metagame, During the current metagame | 2 | stall is aids; screens are aids | Third preference | First preference | Second preference | Fourth preference | The issue with the current metgame is not an inability to check mons like raichu and waters but rather an inability to break the quintessential defensive core featuring resists + shuckle; i think adding a mon like vileplume doesn't add any real breaking power to the tier but instead boosts the viability of stall/defensive teams that already run the tier. i think we should err on the side of change as the current tier is frankly unfun and probably untenable in terms of attracting a playerbase and so i think banning the brokens comes first |